Project: Shou Sugi Ban House – Los Gatos Modern Home
Architects: Schwartz and Architecture
Project Team: Wyatt Arnold, Paul Burgin, Aaron Goldman, Neil O’Shea, Joshua Yoches
Location: Los Gatos, California, United States
Photography: Matthew Millman
Text by Schwartz and Architecture
Enlarging an existing home that has an already strong and complete architectural character can be challenging. Here, we anchor the existing one-story home with a new two-story independent volume, using it both as punctuation mark and counterpoint to the existing composition.
This Los Gatos modern home, which also involved extensive remodeling of the existing modern residence located high above Silicon Valley, was inspired by dominant images and textures from the site: boulders, bark, and leaves. We clad the addition in traditional Japanese Shou Sugi Ban burnt cedar siding both to anchor home with site and to create the visual weight necessary to anchor the existing exuberantly-roofed horizontal building.
The original home was a joint venture between Min | Day as Design Architect and Burks Toma Architects as Architect of Record and was substantially completed in 1999. In 2005, Min | Day added the swimming pool and related outdoor spaces. Schwartz and Architecture began work on the addition and substantial remodel of the interior in 2009, completed in 2015.
